The Language of Strategic Thought: Tactics, Strategy, and Grand Strategy

Read: John Baylis and James J. Wirtz, “Strategy in the Contemporary World: Strategy after 9/11,” in Strategy in the Contemporary World, 3rd ed., ed. John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, and Colin S. Gray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1-15.

Read: Paul Kennedy, “Grand Strategy in War and Peace: Toward a Broader Definition,” in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, ed. Paul Kennedy(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 1-7.

Machiavelli

Read: Felix Gilbert, “Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War” in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 11-31.

III. Strategy in the Era of Total War

Imperial Geopolitics: Bismarck and Lord Salisbury

Read: Erich Eych, Bismarck and the German Empire (New York: George Allen and Unwin, 1950; reprint, New York: W. W. Norton, 1968). Read the excerpt from chapter three entitled, “The Foundation of the German Empire,” pages 174-186 and the excerpt from chapter four entitled, “The Congress of Berlin, 1878,” pages 243-252.

Imperial Geopolitics: Russia on the Periphery of Power

Read: William C. Fuller, Jr., Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600-1914 (New York: Free Press, 1992). Read the designated excerpts from chapters seven and eight, “From the Treaty of Paris to the Congress of Berlin, 1856-78: Russia and the New Vulnerability” and “Alliances, Squandered Opportunities, and Self-Inflicted Wounds: Russia Between Two Wars, 1878-1903.” Read the introductory pages to chapter seven (pages 265-268) and the sections entitled “Military Strategy Under Alexander II,” “Decentralized Strategy: Russia in Central Asia,” “Russian Policy in the Aftermath of German Unification,” “‘Wiped from the Earth by History’: The Strategic Conference of 1873,” “An Interim Strategy for Russia: Technologists into Magicians and the Horse Against the Machine,” and “War, Military Policy, and Strategy: Some Assessments” (pages 286-308 and 323-327). From chapter eight, read the introductory pages (pages 328-338).

Read: Paul W. Schroeder, “Containment Nineteenth Century Style: How Russia was Restrained” in Systems, Stability and Statecraft: Essays on the International History of Modern Europe, ed. David Wetzel, Robert Jervis, and Jack S. Levy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 121-133.

A British Way in Warfare

Read: Sir Michael Howard, “The British Way in Warfare: A Reappraisal,” Neale Lecture in English History, (London: Cape, 1975).

Optional: John B. Hattendorf, “Alliance, Encirclement, and Attrition: British Grand Strategy in the War of Spanish Succession, 1702-1713,” in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, ed. Kennedy, 11-29.

The Great War: A British Way in Warfare?

Read: Sir Michael Howard, “British Grand Strategy in World War I,” in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, ed. Kennedy, 31-41.

Read: Sir Edward Grey, statement on “Great Britain and European Powers,” 3 August 1914; in The Hansard, The House of Commons debates, vol. 65, cc. 1809-1832.

Read: David Lloyd George, address on British war aims, 5 January 1918; in Documents and Statements Relating to Peace Proposals and War Aims, ed. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1919), pp. 108-115.

The Great War: A Peace Without Victory

Read: Telegram from the U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to U.S. Ambassador to Germany James W. Gerard, 10 February 1915, in Diplomatic Correspondence Between the United States and Germany: August 1, 1914 - April 6, 1917, ed. James Brown Scott (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), pp. 27-29.

Read: Woodrow Wilson, address to the Senate on “Peace Without Victory,” 22 January 1917;

The Second World War: German Visions of Victory

Read: Volker R. Berghahn, Europe in the Era of the Two World Wars: From Militarism and Genocide to Civil Society, 1900-1950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). Read the section within chapter 4, “Visions of a New European Order,” pages 113-129.

Read: Joseph Goebbels, “The Europe of the Future” (11 September 1940), in Documents on the History of European Integration, vol. 1, Continental Plans for European Union, 1939-1945, ed.. Walter Lipgens (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1985), 73-76.

Read: Hans Frohwein, “Basic Elements of a Plan for the New Europe” (7 June 1943), in ibid., 132-137.

Read: Dennis E. Showalter, “Total War for Limited Objectives: An Interpretation of German Grand Strategy” in Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace, 105-123.

The Second World War: The Real Postwar World

Read: German Act of Surrender, 8 May 1945; and Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority by the Allied Powers, 5 June 1945; in Documents on Germany, 1944-1961, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), pp. 11-17.